Monday, January 23, 2012

1979 TCMA Waterbury A's Baseball #5, Dennis Wysznski (actually Wyszynski)

Today's TCMA team set includes another (tough-to-spell) name correction, as Dennis Wyszynski drops a letter to become Wysznski. He's right up there with Carl Yastrzemski for big-money SCRABBLE name scoring, but I'm not surprised he avoided the Yaz-style nickanme, since that'd be "whizz" or even "The Whizzer."


Dennis looks pretty nonplussed in this shot. Maybe the catcher told him to throw a spitball and he's got a bad case of cotton mouth.


Wyszynski toiled for 4 years in Oakland's farm system, but retired at age 23, probably to pursue another career. Several Waterbury teammates did successfully reach the majors, including another notable name, Shooty Babitt.

1982 Topps #578, Shooty Babitt

Here's the full 1979 TCMA Waterbury A's checklist, courtesy of TeamSets4U.
  1. Dennis De Barr
  2. Rick Tronerud
  3. Walt Horn
  4. Bart Braun
  5. Dennis Wyszynski
  6. Keith Atherton
  7. Leroy Robbins
  8. Frank Kolarek
  9. Ed Nottle
  10. Al Armstead
  11. Shooty Babitt
  12. Randy Green
  13. Rob Klebba
  14. Mike Patterson
  15. Mike Davis
  16. Al Minker
  17. Larry Groover
  18. Paul Mize
  19. Bruce Fournier
  20. Bob Grandas
  21. Ron McNeely
  22. Tim Conroy
  23. Scott Meyer
  24. Dave Beard
  25. Robert Moore


Value: This #5 cost $2 at MinorLeagueSingles.com. Teammates Mike Davis and Keith Atherton achieved some big-league success, so might run more as singles.

Fakes / reprints: Haven't seen any in the marketplace.

3 comments:

The Lost Collector said...

I like the design of these cards. Not sure why, maybe it's the simplicity.

Mad Guru said...

Arquimedez Pozo has the highest scoring Scrabble name of any major leaguer. Important stuff to know.

Matthew Glidden said...

That's extremely important info. Thanks for doing the legwork!